Two United Nations observers went missing in the northeastern Congolese town of Beni after being taken from their office by unidentified people. The disappearance late on Thursday follows the killing of two other observers with the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) last month in a similarly remote area of the vast country, the size of western Europe. The U.N. mission said it had no information on who had taken the two men and declined to reveal their nationalities. "They were taken to an unknown destination by unknown people," MONUC spokesman Hamadoun Toure said by telephone from the Congolese capital Kinshasa. "We're trying to find out what happened to them," he said.
Lunch now being served.
Beni lies 70 miles to the southwest of the Congolese town of Bunia, where an international force composed mainly of French troops began deploying this month to shield residents in the town from tribal bloodshed. MONUC, which began deploying observers in Congo in 2001 to monitor a cease-fire deal, is a separate mission from the new force in Bunia, and contains troops from various countries.
Poor bastards |